Ripple Effect Mapping: Documenting Impacts in Communities

Attention: MSU Faculty, Academic Staff, and Graduate Students

Frustrated with evaluation approaches that don’t quite capture all of the “ripples” of your community work? Looking for a new way to engage participants and stakeholders in your evaluation? This workshop might be for you. Ripple mapping uses elements of asset mapping, radiant thinking, appreciative inquiry, and qualitative data analysis to reflect upon and visually map intended and unintended consequences of community-based programs and collaborations. Its strength comes from engaging participants and stakeholders to identify and document multiple impacts as they ripple through groups and communities.

Workshop participants will leave with a basic understanding of the method and its foundations, when to use this method (and when not to use it), steps in ripple mapping processes, ways of representing ripple mapping data, and published examples of scholarship using ripple mapping. Examples come from community development, state-wide training program, health promotion, and youth development.